Der Strohwitwer

Danielle and the boys flew to the US a week ago Thursday. Please note that I did not say “flew home” because, as she constantly reminded us preceding their trip, “Berlin is our home”. So, for 11 days now, I have been a Strohwitwer, a funny German name for a husband living briefly alone; as in (straw ie: bed, widower).

Danielle and I have been married almost 21 years and have had lovely cherubs running around wreaking havoc for almost 15! You might think, “Oh, this will be a nice change for Dave”. Well, for about 15 minutes, it was. Actually, I have had some fun and done some cool stuff, but it does not feel complete to be alone. Actually, quite empty.

Among the fun things I have done is playing tennis with friends from work, cycling (big surprise), I’ve gone to a couple of movies, gone to the Opera and, astoundingly… cleaned, cooked, washed laundry. I even cleaned Jack and Cam’s bathroom. Man, that was fun. If the pharmaceutical companies ever run out of interesting life to investigate in the rain forest, they should definitely set up a research center here.

Needless to say, I am counting the days until I go home, err, I mean, until I go to the US for a visit. :-)

So, coming back to the bike ride…

About one hour south of Berlin there is a small “Medieval” city called Jüterbog. Of course, everything outside of West Berlin was the DDR. I think this is a mixed blessing. It tended to mean that most things (ie: farm land and villages) did not change much, but what did change tended to be really, really ugly.

Jüterbog center is lovely. You can see bits of its defensive wall built in the 1200’s and a surprisingly big cathedral in its center. Actually, Jüterbog’s claim to fame (or infamy if you prefer) was that Cardinal Albert of Brandenburg was one of the most audacious sellers of indulgences in all Germany. It is said that his actions were the catalyst to Luther writing his famous 95 theses. When we visited with Mark, we saw one of the chests reputed to have been used to hold the treasure (half went to the Pope, Al kept the rest to pay off debts).

On this trip, I did not visit the center. My goal was to circumnavigate the area on a wonderful bike path called the Fläming Skate. This is fantastic example of the infrastructure built after unification to help the East Germans. Thousands of tourists are attracted to the area every weekend because of this combination cycle / roller blade path. There are several loops possible with varying lengths. I chose the outer ring. 100 Kilometers of farmland forest and small dorfs (villages).

There is a magic here. A timeless, simple, beautiful magic. There are no highways, no trains, no modern buildings, no malls. The only thing reminding you that the year is 2008, not 1908, or even 1808, is the ever-present view of modern windmills dotting the horizon.

The land here is not as flat as our Midwest, nor as rolling as New England.. It is somewhere happily in between. Cycling is incredibly easy and fast and the terrain changes subtly, but often. You ride along with a golden field of wheat stretching out on right, while corn fills the horizon on the left. It looks like a putting green would to an ant; absolutely uniform and perfectly smooth, with a deep lustrous green. Suddenly, the corn disappears, replaced by a pine forest. Neat rows of pine trees grow in a sea of tall green grass. Every once in a while a small village pops up on the horizon. The villages are always the same, a collection of low ceramic tile roofs clustered together, with a church steeple rising from the center.

In one such village, I stopped for something sweet and a little coffee to perk me up. I was the only guest at 10:30 in the morning on a Sunday, but the waitress cheerfully greeted me. “ Ich hatte gern etwas Suß, bitte.” She brought me a HUGE piece of cake. Vanilla with whipped cream and hand picked cherry filling. She explained to me, somewhat proudly, that she had made it herself the day before. Fantastic!

By the end of the 100 k, I was pretty tuckered out. As I completed the loop and returned to my car, I realized that the bike path went through an old East German air force base. It was a bit eerie. The hangers were dug into the ground and all of the buildings were reinforced concrete. Now, instead of MIGs, the only thing on the run way were ATVs. Someone bought it and built an ATV track. One of the hangers was turned into a restaurant, complete with old Soviet trucks as decorations. Bizarre.

I am looking foreward to return to Fläming Skate with Danielle, Jack and Cam. It is the nicest bike path that I have ever ridden on.